I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (i.e. PostDoc) at the University of Roehampton (UK). My project is called ‘ADHD women: Resisting a Neuronormative World‘. I am both an ADHD researcher and an ADHD academic. I use my ‘standpoint’ as an ADHD woman to develop this sociological project through an ADHD-affirmative, critical and intersectional lens (away from the deficiency or pathology model of ADHD)!
Fieldwork for this project – with ADHD women in England – takes place in 2022 (phases 1 and 2) and 20224 (phases 3 and 4). If you’d like to know more about participating in the project, go to the Invite for Participation (Phase 1). An academic overview can be found on the research project page. To receive email updates, register here.
If you’re wondering by now how to pronounce my name (Dyi Huijg), which happens a lot, you can listen to me pronouncing it here. I find folks trying to pronounce my last name very amusing, so please do give it a try!
Background
My academic background and interests are quite multidisciplinary. All my work revolves around social in/justice, uses an intersectional lens, and looks at various social categories (e.g. gender, race, dis/ability), and specifically at both disadvantage and privilege. Sometimes I do small projects on the side – for instance during my PhD I completed a small unfunded project on Brexit and disability. You can find more about my research projects here, an overview of my publications here, and my CV here. (For links to my professional profiles elsewhere, scroll to the bottom of the page.)
I completed my PhD on ‘intersectional agency‘ in Sociology at the University of Manchester (viva Dec 2019, Ai/no corrections). My thesis was grounded in ‘phenomenological conversations‘ (a method I will further develop in my postdoc) with racially privileged feminist activists from São Paulo (Brazil). Before this, I completed a combined BA and MA in Languages and Cultures of Latin America, at Leiden University (the Netherlands). Although I learned Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish (or Portuñol, in times of less practice), completing a bespoke curriculum, most of my modules were in International Relations (including a BA minor), Anthropology, Social Movement Studies, and Feminist and Race Critical Studies at other universities. Inclusively, I studied in Brazil (UFRGS, USP) and Mexico (UNAM), and completed an internship in São Paulo (Brazil) with União de Mulheres do Município de São Paulo and Sempreviva Organização Feminista (SOF) – this is where my feminist activism started. My Master’s dissertation concerned an analysis of whiteness in (an analysis in a book chapter on) the Brazilian feminist movement of the Second Wave.
Teaching
During my Leverhulme EC Fellowship (LECF), I teach guest lectures at BA and MA levels at the University of Roehampton – mainly in the areas of intersectional disability and neurodiversity studies and qualitative methods. Prior to the LECF, I taught as a lecturer and seminar leader at six different Russell Group and post-1992 universities (e.g. U. of Manchester, UCL, Birkbeck, LSBU). I have taught quite broadly: modules have been in the areas of gender, race, sexuality, disability, social theory, qualitative methods and academic skills, but also, for instance, the self, globalisation, family, personal life, and gender and crime. Additionally, I developed a private practice as an academic teacher to support HE students (BA through to ProfDoc/PhD level) with critical thinking, analysis and writing; research methods theory and skills; as well as (informal) dissertation and thesis supervision. Grounded in these teaching practices and critical, crip and intersectional pedagogies, I started to develop ideas around ‘Relaxed Pedagogy’ or ‘RelaxPed’.
Social justice & organising
While I am now a postdoctoral researcher, my interest in social justice work has its roots in my own international activist background – I organised networks, groups, events and workshops concerned with, for instance, gender/feminism, race/critical whiteness, age/generation, sexuality, and dis/ability. Now I work in academia, I continue this by organising seminars, chairing panels etc. I also organise and facilitate the online and international Intersectional Neurodiversity and Disability Reading Groups. Find an overview of my background in organising here.
It’s not all research, teaching and organising…
I’m lucky now to get paid for something that brings satisfaction and can contribute to change (mind, before the PhD I worked in a Dutch bank in the areas of customer service, admin and mortgages). Apart form this, I also enjoy reading fiction (including bingeing on crime novel series by female authors), playing (board) games, listening to podcasts, walking in the woods, and spending time with my ageing and disabled dog Lucy. Lucy’s taught me, to end with a disability and ADHD metaphor, that there’s no shame in chasing squirrels and lounging like your life depends on it.
